Apple Patents Keyboard That Knows What You'll Type 132
fysdt writes "Another day, another patent, this one from Apple for a very curious sort of keyboard that might be easier to type on because it'll know in advance which keys your fingertips want to hit. No, not a device built by Emmett 'Doc' Brown (as far as we know, anyway), or pulled back through time in a TARDIS—just a very special type of board with tiny inbuilt tactile sensors capable of detecting what your spider-formation fingers are about to tap before they actually do."
Put the earbuds back in (Score:2, Insightful)
Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III... (Score:4, Insightful)
Quoting the immortal words of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott: "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
A keyboard should be just that, a keyboard. All other stuff in this patent is just overthinking the plumbing.
Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, the keyboards we have now are perfect, and there's no reason to incrementally improve them. Why, when it comes time to use something better, it'll be okay that it's completely different because we'll all just jump to that en-masse. I mean, what, is some totally new input system going to have unforeseen consequences? Hah! That'll be the day!
Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like the old "build-a-better-mouse-trap" analogy. Sure, you can make it re-usable. You can make it more humane. You can make it with blinkin-lights. But, all we want is something cheap that we can throw peanut butter on, kills the mouse, and we can throw away w/o getting our hands dirty. About the only improvements for keyboards are making the keys softer/quieter, more comfortable, or rearranging them. Does my chair need to react when my bum's about to land?
Re:Quoting the immortal words from Star Trek III.. (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need a newer, better kind of keyboard. We need an older, better kind of keyboard! [wikipedia.org]